The owner of Washington's NFL franchise has an opportunity to make a bold statement in the name of social progress by discarding the racially offensive nickname of his team — and he won't budge an inch.

It doesn't matter that Snyder, shown up by another high school, has been called out by lawmakers on Capitol Hill. He apparently won't be swayed in the face of a federal lawsuit brought by a group of Native Americans seeking to overturn a previous trademark ruling and strip him of the nickname.

Backlash is to be essentially ignored by Snyder, who recently declared to USA TODAY Sports that he would NEVER change the team's nickname. (Snyder, by the way, suggested using all caps.)

And the NFL is almost as bad. In a letter to 10 members of Congress who had urged the league to reject the nickname, Commissioner Roger Goodell said essentially the use of the word "Redskins" is meant to honor Native Americans.

He added, "For the team's millions of fans and customers ... the name is a unifying force that stands for strength, courage, pride and respect."

In other words, the NFL, standing beside Snyder on this, is telling anyone who is offended (Native American or otherwise) that they can't trust their own instincts because that's not what we mean. We honor you by disparaging you, Goodell says. How arrogant.

This also comes with dumb-and-dumber rationale: Snyder and others have dared to mention tradition as a reason to keep the name.

Sure, this is the franchise of Sonny Jurgensen, Joe Gibbs and the only African-American quarterback to win a Super Bowl, Doug Williams.

But the franchise's tradition also includes its racist founder, George Preston Marshall, whom historians identify as the driving force behind the color barrier that existed for 12 years in the NFL — a sad chapter from 1934 to 1945, when African Americans were banned from the league by a "gentleman's agreement."

Marshall, who changed the team's nickname (see, it's happened before) from the Braves in 1933 and moved it from Boston in 1937, for years marketed his franchise to appeal to the segregated South. The band played Dixie. The Confederate flag flew.

And after the NFL's color line was crossed in 1946, the Redskins were the last team to field a black player — and not until 1962.

That can't be ignored while trying to sell your franchise's tradition.

"There are a lot of traditions we've done away with in this country, because we've moved forward," Charles Ross, a professor of African-American Studies and History at the University of Mississippi, told USA TODAY Sports. "We're in the 21st century."

We're also at a point when the wildly popular NFL promotes diversity and inclusion. Changing the franchise's nickname would be the next step after the monumental gesture of implementing the Rooney Rule a decade ago, and another show of corporate leadership that might inspire teams in other sports that trivialize Native Americans with their nicknames to break tradition.

Within the ranks of NFL owners, there are mixed opinions. I talked to five team owners about the nickname issue, and none was willing to speak on the record — which underscores the sensitivity of the issue.

One of the owners, however, told USA TODAY Sports that if a team's nickname offends even a small percentage of people, changing it should be considered.

Another owner, though, maintained that some Native Americans have personally expressed to him that they have no issues with the nickname.

The NFL generates nearly $10 billion in annual revenue, and some of the owners acknowledged a desire for the league to position itself as an entity that doesn't exclude anyone. Nearly all of the owners I spoke with also indicated that they wanted a better grasp of the percentage of the population offended by the nickname.

Snyder's franchise hails opinion polls, including a recent Associated Press survey that said 79% of respondents favored keeping the nickname. But that's not good enough. Teton High didn't rely on a poll. It did the right thing, backed by conscious.

Change is often a good thing. Ask people who have been affected by movements for civil rights, women's rights or gay rights.

"We have evolved in this nation through struggle," Ross said. "We're at a point in our society where we should know better."